I Find It Interesting That Wordnik Created The API Definition Format Swagger

01 Oct 2014

I’m working through my API design stories, and was working through some research on the origins of Swagger, and as I'm writing a paragraph on Wordnik, I became distracted around how Swagger was born out of this "word" startup. You see, Wordnik presents themselves as "a new way to discover meaning", and out of this work, Swagger, "a new way to discover meaning" from APIs was born.

Words are an important building block in communication, and I see APIs as a similar, more structured way to approach online communication on the open Internet. Swagger has given us a new vocabulary, providing a new way to describe, and communicate around APIs. You can programmatically pull a a Swagger specification for an API, and within a few seconds you have an idea of what the API resources means, and has to offer.

There really isn't any major point to this story, other than the fact that I find it interesting that a company who is striving to discover meaning among words, would also be looking to help us discovery meaning of APIs. I think this essence is why so many are adopting Swagger to define their valuable API resources, because it comes from a purer place, than just trying to sell you API tooling, and is actually working to help you find and communicate the meaning amongst APIs.